Using your wedding location as the inspiration for your invitation is logical, practical, and offers plenty of design options. Play up one of the venue's architectural or landscape features, or choose colors, fonts, and motifs that capture the vibe of the space.

Truth be told, we weren't in love with the royal wedding invitation. So we asked top stationery designers from around the country to dream up some more luxurious designs—feel free to steal inspiration for your own grand affair.

Kate and Will's wedding invitation, though appropriately formal, was disappointingly vanilla in terms of design. If you ask us, these regal invitations would have been a better choice and prove that "formal" can be conveyed with lots of flair.